Slow internet speeds in rural areas don’t just stop farmers from buying Netflix subscriptions, it could be robbing their communities of a chance at financial success.

New research strengthens the argument that federal regulators who measure internet speeds shouldn’t be taking service providers at their word.

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania funded research on internet speeds from ground-based, wired internet connections.

A team led by Sascha Meinrath, Penn State’s Palmer Chair of Telecommunications and co-creator of Measurement Lab, or M-Lab, completed the research, pulling on data M-Lab has collected for years.

Annual Federal Communications Commission broadband deployment data, which is supplied by internet companies, shows that nearly 95 percent of Pennsylvania residents have access to what the government defines as broadband internet service, or download speeds of 25 megabits per second, or Mbps.

The Penn State report, however, concludes user experience is much slower. In fact, it finds that fewer than 50 percent of consumers in each Pennsylvania county have speeds of 25 Mbps or greater.

The team’s conclusion rankled the internet industry.

“This report confuses availability and adoption,” said Brian Herrmann, spokesman for the Broadband Cable Association of Pennsylvania. “Virtually every municipality has broadband cable going by the residences with speeds up to a gig (gigabit per second, or 1,000 Mbps).”

Meinrath recoils at the industry association’s defense.

“I don’t see how we can be any more clear that we are 100 percent aware that advertised availability and M-Lab’s actual speed measures are two separate data sets,” he said.

Numbers don’t match

M-Lab’s data, culled from millions of speed tests in Pennsylvania, shows a yawning gap between what providers say they deliver in rural locales and the connection speeds customers actually get.

For example: in Meshoppen, Wyoming County, the FCC reported December 2014 deployed speeds of 3 Mbps.

For that same time period, M-Lab recorded median experienced speeds of 1.88 Mbps.

Two years later, in December 2016, the FCC’s deployed speeds were posted at 18 Mbps, the report says.

Consumer speed tests showed a median speed of 2.74 Mbps in December 2016.

Access vs. service

As far as the FCC is concerned, if a single home within a census tract has access to those speeds, that geographic area is considered to be served.

But that’s confusing, Meinrath says. People may have high speed access somewhere in their town, but that doesn’t mean it reaches their home or business modems.

“It’s the same story if you’re in New Mexico or Pennsylvania or Michigan,” said Francella Ochillo, executive director at Next Century Cities. The Washington, D.C.-based organization helps cities across the country get reliable, affordable internet access.

“This is a story that is replicated throughout the country ... (and) we’re at a tipping point where I feel like there’s finally a public acknowledgement as well a political will to change something in the way that we’re collecting data.”

When government agencies collect bad data, communities that need resources lose out and the money gets funneled toward those that need it less, she said.

“The complaints are nearly universal in rural communities,” state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Township, Luzerne County, said in a statement. She’s been an advocate for more access in rural areas, especially when it comes to improving health care infrastructure.

She also points out that economic recovery in rural towns lags behind other places that have stronger infrastructure.

“The problem is particularly acute across northern tier counties, where the jobs numbers are showing only slight improvement since the recession, and technology limitations contribute to the slow recovery,” she said.

Why it matters

Fast internet is far more important than giving you can the “Orange is the New Black” season finale glitch-free.

It’s become a ubiquitous tool for education, health care and commerce. In developed nations, it touches every facet of human existence and will only become increasingly so.

Ochillo said the debate between availability and adoption probably isn’t so black and white.

“There are couple of layers to that adoption piece that are not only about access and it being available in your area,” she said, adding, “I do think that the main barrier remains affordability.”

She offered a few other examples:

• Complacency among customers, who have only ever had slow internet speeds, accept what they get.

•Others can’t afford the monthly bill or the equipment. Maybe they don’t know how to use a computer or hook up a broadband modem.

•Immigrants who come from countries where they don’t trust the government shun technology.

New federal funding

Last week, the FCC announced it would spend over $121 million to connect more than 36,500 homes in unserved rural homes and businesses across 16 states and support the new infrastructure for 10 years.

“In Pennsylvania, this round of funding takes another step toward closing the digital divide, providing access to digital opportunity to over 7,000 unserved rural homes and businesses,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement.

Such an investment could have helped school districts such as Northwest Area, where students’ Google Chromebooks wouldn’t matter much without the high-speed service the district installed a ten years ago.

Back then, Northwest Area joined other districts in Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18 and Northeastern Educational Intermediate Unit 19 in a project called the “Northeastern Pennsylvania Wide Area Network.”

The private network is bid out through the intermediate units and passed along to participating districts. Service is currently provided by Frontier Communications.

To take advantage of the WAN, the district built its own infrastructure. Three towers use line-of-sight wireless to connect two elementary schools to the district’s broadband internet, which comes through cable to the administration building and high school. Every few years, district officials upgrade the equipment on its towers, said technology director Adam Sorber. They just improved the tower equipment because the previous equipment couldn’t handle the gigabit-per-second speed of the district’s internet connection.

“If not for that WAN project about a decade ago and us erecting the towers and building our network ourselves, there still would be no solution in place that would be affordable for the district, or even available,” Sorber said.

Sorber hears complaints about residential internet service all the time from people in the area. For people who don’t like their internet connection, they can try satellite. But that costs more, and telephone calls made using wifi — which many people rely on because cell service is so poor — sometimes does not work as well through satellite.

It’s an internet connection with download speeds of 25 megabits per second, or Mbps, and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. Here are a few examples of what that gets you.

• Consumers can adequately browse the internet, stream videos from Netflix, play games online and connect multiple devices — all at the same time — at those speeds. You need at least 25 Mbps to stream Ultra HD 4K video, according to the FCC.

• It’s more than fast enough to facilitate credit card transactions for small businesses quickly and other commerce functions such as processing orders.

• For comparison’s sake, general web browsing and sending email requires about 1 Mbps. The 25-Mbps definition will likely change in the future, as more devices are added to “the internet of things,” requiring faster speeds for even routine tasks and activities.

Why is it important for rural communities?

Here’s what Norman J. Kennard, a member of the state Public Utility Commission, said about it: “ … rural broadband has substantial societal benefits, including: reducing medical costs, improving education for children and workers, leading to improved median household incomes and driving down unemployment, stimulating economic growth in communities, saving consumers money with better shopping opportunities, and providing increased farm revenue.”

Why don’t the FCC’s speed numbers match real user experience?

Internet service providers tell the FCC what speeds they offer in any given census tract, but that doesn’t mean customers are paying for those speeds or that extending cable lines to reach homes and businesses won’t cost more. Some lawmakers, researchers and tech companies say this way of measuring speeds is outdated, and it should be updated so the agencies that fund infrastructure improvement know where the problems are.

Why is broadband limited in rural areas?

Lower customer density means a higher cost per customer in rural areas for all sorts of infrastructure, including high-speed internet — so internet service providers make less money.

Has the country faced similar infrastructure challenges before?

In the 1930s, about 90% of people living in cities had access to electricity, but only about 10% of rural residents did. Private companies were not interested in bringing electricity to rural areas because they thought farmers wouldn’t be able to afford the service after it was installed, according to the Roosevelt Institute. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, helped bring electricity to rural America.

I can’t get on-land broadband cable to my house. What are my options?

Satellite TV companies provide high speed internet access, but people who use their satellite dishes for internet access have high-latency rates, or delays in the processing of information transfer, and brownouts under cloudy skies. In many cases, it also costs more than a wired connection. Contact your provider and ask what might be available.

What is the state government and the federal government doing about rural broadband access?

State and federal governments are investing funds to develop rural broadband internet.

In Pennsylvania, for example, Gov. Tom Wolf launched the Pennsylvania Broadband Investment Incentive Program, which made $35 million of incentive funding available to providers bidding on rural areas. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has made $600 million of grants and loans available for improving rural internet access. Last week, the FCC announced $121 million for broadband infrastructure improvements in 16 states including Pennsylvania.

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